PATRICK kAVANGH CELEBRATION - 2006

There is an old saying here, along the lines that "it's through the shelter of each other we survive..."

...the we

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heard above on Fodhla, Banbhu and Eiru's shore. Look them up. They're real dealers in a genuine craic factory cum casino. Making it happen on demand in their home where live poetry is living. They come from all nations and have the combined passions of a big apple, Birmingham, Alabama, Clint Frank - saw by KFK "...score four touchdowns in less than two quarters, against a pretty good Princeton team." Playing ball in Boston College. An alumnae of Cardiff dockers at punch up in a pub with Leeds miners

and Manchester's Arsenal
supporters. Hear Celtic 'n Rangers -
Giants 'n Redsox, Yankee stadium 'n

LA Hells Angels singing in the
Sydney opera house Newcastle,
Belfast or Liverpool Empire with U

two. United to roll our sound of
sheer reality. An all-inclusive one.

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Dublin. Friday 1 September.

Patrick Kavanagh Celebration 2006 - Fleet Street - above the Palace Bar.

Second year. A lot of hype. Photographer in attendance. 5' 5" tanned and toned 'n with a fella. A fellow photographer, upstairs in the Palace by accident. Lulled in off the street by our night's energy. Arty beyond belief. In Dublin myth happens. This home of dream. Joyce 'n Beckett - Wilde 'n Shaw. Freud said the Irish were un-analysable because life to them was just story, tale and talk. These four Dublin writers nailed spoken word to page with a true ring. Snapped "the passionate and transitory" reality from which we draw for poetry and fictions on the page. Shut the books up and speak our print to live in ear and off the page.

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Druid Paddy. Dominic Taylor. The White House. Limerick pub hosting weekly poetry Wednesday night. Broadcast in CD quality, online several days later. The world's very first one. Stunned us to silence with only two of his works. One, a love poem to his wife. Humble and honest and a true spirit of Munster. SW Ireland. Rugby. Limerick. Thomond Park - 31 October 1978 - Munster 12 - All Blacks 0. Incineration ground. An event for the plot of John Breen's global smash hit play - Alone it Stands. Humanity as one unbeaten at home in the European cup for well over a decade. Utter fanatics.

Dublin. May 2006 - Lansdowne Road. Munster V Leinster semi-final of the 2006 European Cup. A unique game of Rugby. Immediately fabled into an all time classic. Munster fans sung Low lie the fields of Athenry through electric megaphones. No Shit.

A proud steward and Leinster fan tried to fix a withery stare upon the main Munster man singing into his megaphone, leading a gaggle of war-painted bodran players. 20 in the heart of the hardest of hardcore support. Upper stand V. North end of the East stand. Munster fan's are 110% unaware or caring of the Leinster stewards desire for less enthusiasm at sporting events. Munster's passion seized me and we hollered at full cry. A joy to watch. Munster. Michael Collins. Keano. Play to win.

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Higgins - O hUgin is a premier name in Bardic literature, particularly in the West. Sligo, Clare, Galway. Kevin Higgins is a class act. Leader of the pack. Total poetry, direct and without apology. Life’s knowing wink of intimacy in immediate connection. One main force for good in Connacht. The wild west of Ireland. Atlantic crashing home after its three thousand mile run. Mayo beating Dublin for the first time in 100 years, at this years All Ireland Football semi final at Croker. 80,000. Sheer mesmeric nature. He does not wilt beneath the flame. The real thing and man for a crisis, with an unflappable poetic sensibility Remember the Artic Monkeys? Beatles? All the cool bands you dreamt of being into at the start?

Nor Ulster man Mark Madden, who has made it happen as a poetry organiser in both Copenhagen and Vancouver. Total commitment to live poetry. Owner of the Arcadia Coffee House Belfast. Have you experienced Gearoid MacLochlainn on fire yet? Mark's red hotness gushes from the same source. Weekly live performance and desire, to horrify straights with sheer talent and total commitment. Forget the idea of poetry being a lonely wandering, on a cloud above an unconnecting audience. Saying how wonderful the entertainmnet was when all were bored shitless. Bluffers beware.

Have a Gander

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Making it happen. Aint seen nowt like it. His life is write and recite. Now. As we blather. At the Patrick Kavanagh Celebration 2006 on Friday night. Mark swinging from a stair platform at the Palace Bar in Fleet Street Dublin. His posession beneath the glow on our warm inclusive stage, plugged us all in as one mad zapped bunch of pure class poetry lovers. Mark Madden was completely electric, as were many others lashing out art and living poetry to life from 7.00 - 10.30pm.

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Glenn Gannon. Son of a sixth generation Dublin flower seller climbing Kilamanjaro for charity. Yeah, that’s right. Venturing up a mountain. One man and a dream so insane and positive it was just meant to be. Reading from his award winning autobiographical short story My own Isolde. Just one of the stars who shone there.

Andrew Clark, a flute player working on the front line with bandaged fingers and who sung one of his own ballads, which welded all there in a oneness rarely experienced at most gigs of poesy. No shit.

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The ballad's central protaganist was Balor - a one-eyed god of myth his eye a laser gun eye, killed by Lugh, who is the sun deity of the Tuatha de Dannan, who came and did the talking here around 1500'ish BC. Vanquished by the Sons of Mil. Milesians. The final wave of mythical invaders to appear and reality as we prove it begun.


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Terry Cosgrave said he was there as a poet, only in the sense of a Latin American country boasting the most ratio of poets to population on earth, 100%. It's the law that all citizens of the state are poets, until proved otherwise. Like here.

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Razoring up a throng to enthrallment with his magic, was Mark Granier. Tales and gags in adundance. Sinking bullseye ‘n urban reality with a feline one liner slinkiness and smootherity, all there tittered in as one.

This was raw and amazingly live poetry. We grains containing galaxies of void and light thermaled there last Friday. Spells were cast and launched at the centre darling in lar, so say coz we're all feeling it now my toys. We all whirled away in mythic contemplation of how life's blueprint letters in the roll. Rock me not to torpor, for I am at home in a space station orbiting earth. Now. At this mo - so stop, in the name of love. What more in the nameless surrender of we folk and tiddlers, toddlers and teasers weakening a bond with the local community watch tower concentrating energies and monitoring what moves.

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We gave a serious account of ourselves. I was at the door ushering in gob-smacked normal people, unable almost to believe reality beckoning from our stage.

The crammed venue physically forced a spotlight of corner to occur. A speakers corner of full inclusion. This is why the night was a success. Because all were treated equally. Everyone got their moment in a spotlight, however humble they be. PJ Brady made sure of that. PJ played Kavanagh for twenty years in a one man show. Played him on his hundreth birthday in the church at Innnerskeen, Monaghan. Cavan man Patrick Brady from a few miles down the road - playing Patrick Kavanagh on his centenary day, just yards from the grave.

The Heart Laid Bare was the play. The monologue culled from Kavanagah's own poetry and prose. A reconstruction. As close to the horses mouth as can be. Kavanagh came onstage that night, and on Friday. PJ

"Are there any here who have not spoken and wish to do so? Please come, share from the stage. This is what the event is all about. To show reality. Give a platform to the dis-possessed. Folk who feel and love. All of us."

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Poetry happened.

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The butterfly and hawk eye of logic wrestled accident. WB dropping muffin forks, tea cosies and a goldfish bowl upon the floor of Lissadel in summer. Window open and a giraffe shaped tree draping its branches either side of the two doors. Like a tucked swan-wing.

Patrick Finnegan, like Kevin and Rita Higgins, a superb Galway poet, but unlike them, not in the first flush of manhood - with a fair few knocks along his way, but still a legend for those lucky enough to hear his work. He sounded a mesmerising poem and gifted his huge live talent to give all there a fair jolt. Literally in gasp at Paddy.

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I have been going mad alone here in front of my screen Gloria Jenkinson from flat seven 306 Fleet street London, circa Scottssboro maiden.

Come fly with me. Bring an apple flower scented with a Du Luc full bottle region, where we spent a winter wrapped in one another's arms. The whirlwind approaching did not ruffle us. Curled coiled critical of only the cold and uninviting tenderness of a seven day holiday and work-break in Bayside.

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We had harpist Brenda Molloy and mandolin legend Sean Og dipping in and out of the mix with the perfect timing of one whose life is nought but sound. Music, poetry and song in the Palace, whisked to life and literature by poesy's vibe and Kavanagah's spirit alone


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Under the tunnel sheltering from a whirlwind.
No doubt it will happen one day if you come again my sweetest of Scottsboro roses, scenting Alabama in white cotten. It may well be much cooler when you touch down this time. Fleece are needed. A warm jacket, hat and gloves to fully prepare for what happens in the day.

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Now are the last days of summer.